November 30, 2009

wood smoke, orangepoppies and nights onthe bed where sea blowndrapes kissed bare legs.A true initiationbefore the husbanddrove home. This man,an ex-con, alkie, wittybut not as witty as hethought. The first timeanyone put a tonguethere and there. Ofcourse I couldn’t keephim. He was too bigto have in the house.How like Rashomonthe women’s lettersabout him, the womanhe took along for thedark forever house.Then the woman hemarried. Her letters,the suicide car plowinginto a school bushaunt. I still have keysfor the cottage intangled vines. He taughtme what men did inprison. When he waslate I was sure I’d findhis body in the leaves.Nights around 9, helit a match under thewindow, and I flashedthe lights. He was likefireflies you reachfor in the dark,are gone with the light

November 29, 2009

invade my moments.. soft honeydippedwords that reach out to melt across

the heat of your waiting world as warmrain on a hot summer day are held back

as I speak with the distance that weall place between each other..I look

over your body and even as you wonderwhether or not your makeup is done right

or your dress is on straight I can almostfeel a warm hand gliding up your body with

the skill of a painter.. surveying the beautythat hides in each curve of you as he tries

to map it with his own hands..the pain of themmelts away as I listen to your words.. focusing

on each one. .. using it to see the sights ofthe world through your minds eye..I sense your

pleasure speaking to me from whispers deepwithin you and these nails cause me to hesitate

*I have had a series of chapbooks published in the 1980's by 4 Winds Press, such titles as "Doors and Windows", "Dancing in the Eighties" and "Slow Burn". I have had two poetry books published, the first "Teardrop of Coloured Soul" in 2005 and my latest one to be released in Jan. of 2010 entitled "I Walk Naked into a Cloud".

November 27, 2009

there were snakes in thetent. My mother wasstrong but she neverslept, was afraid ofdreaming. In Auschwitzthere was a numbness,lull of just stayingalive. Her two babiesgassed before her, Dr.Mengele, you know whohe is? She kept heryoung sister aliveonly to have her diein her arms the nightof liberation. My motheris big boned, but sheweighed under 70 lbs.It was hot, I thoughtthe snakes lovely. Nodrugs in Israel, nofood. I got pneumonia,my mother knocked thedoctor to the floorwhen they refused,said I lost two inthe camp and if thisone dies I’ll killmyself in front ofyou. I thought thatonce you became amother, blue numbersappeared, mysteriously,tattooed on your arm

It’s all in that old WICKER MAN filmwith Christopher Leewho holds the triple crownfor horror roles: Dracula,the Frankenstein Monster,and the Mummyand Edward WoodwardTHE EQUALISERjust died. He playedthe virgin fool king copwho turns down theinnkeeper’s daughter(the song in the bar goes:“What lies between herleft foot and her right foot?”)doing an ass-shaking wonder danceand closes the door on Ingrid Pittand her big Polish tits waitingin the hot metal bathtub.She played Countess Draculamaniac sadist Elizabeth Bathorythe Blood Countesswho bathed in the blood oftortured slaughtered virginsto keep her skin young and alivewith the young virgin bloodcaught in the woods or on the roadtoo late during the starry night.

Anyway, I read online thatEdward Woodward just diedholy fool king virgin copwho refused suchpowerful booty dutyin the face of tits and assand terror and timehis death onlinein the end when theyburn him alive insidethe WICKER MANto bring back the harvestthe smokeblocking out the suntelling us that theyshould water all our graves withhot holy whiskeyand sacred cold beerto bring the blood back to the cheeksof the assof the sun.

November 20, 2009

My cheap imagination, everything I've seen, thought, dreamedout of control, all the better for heaven and hell,where women roam in G-strings, wanting to be helddown,so far away from civilization,the long legs of her, giant on the land, toes wiggling in the sea,clouds in their fast pace above, white and fluffy, faces in thechangingwind,she knows how to watch, gazing with her mouth open, sighing,widening her stretch of legs, forest hair, digging her heels inthe soft earth she plays on, pillows out of men,I magnify her dance as she lays sun tanning, swaying in the sand,eyes closed, eyelashes dark as the coming night,prayingshe remembers my name, knows my voice, craves the touch ofmy fingers,my digit eternally potent.

November 19, 2009

by Serena TomeCircles of smoke carefully exitHis mouth, his eyes do all the talkingAll night he touches me from across the room Finally.He comes over sits next to meThe moisture from his breathe drizzlesDown the nape of my neck evaporatingAs it tickles a hot spot head downI focus on the bubbles exploding in my drinkHe candidly asks, “Can I taste it?”My eyes quickly flank to the left as I respond “My place or yours?”

She licks her boobswatches himwatching televised sportshis eyes follow the ballthey live together in somekind of external blissbut it never gets injectedthey wear out the loveseatbut only with their asses

November 18, 2009

Don’t let me thinkof the one whopoured chocolateall over wheretoday it feels bestto be left unsaid.Dark chocolate,dark as his eyes.I, who can luremost with words,with verbs forfingers, stumbleas he moves closegoing into flirtmode, still wear-ing his taste as Istop breathing

when he was safely dead,no longer a lure, when Ino longer imagined runninginto him in an abandonedtrain station, no longertried to find him on theradio dial. Dead, a relief.Sad, yes, but no longerable to haunt me. I thinkof abandoning dance. Foronce, I’ll be the dance awaylover, no longer stuffingmy closet with clothes hewill adore tho not as muchas my poems but certainlymore than my dancing. Atorture to me becauseI can’t dance as I dream Icould but stumble in hisarms, too aware it’s mypoems he’s drawn to, animage of an image that’sless real than what isprojected on a movie screen

Sometimes you sit for dayssucking yourself inpraying the right wordswill fall in your eartoboggan over the whorlspierce the canaland settle in your brain,an embryonic delight.Sometimes you sit for daysand finally the words comeand they're always a surpriselike the first tulip in Aprilor a suddenorgasm for your wife.

November 12, 2009

I’m flung back to 92 Rapple,sheer curtains to the floor.Silk spread, snow smooth,palest ivory, wall to wall.Bridal, exotic. How manyyears was it, wondering, avirgin still, a husband whobrought me tea in bed butnot what I longed for. Inthe photograph, gauzecamouflages, lures. Softdreams, no angles. And evenbefore the first lover came,bottle of wine, Chateau yKempe hidden in thecloset, probably stolen fromsome friend’s house inCarmel. Months of letters,photographs of him, oneof Dylan Thomas so I hadno idea what to expectFantasy was one thing. But tohave him: ex con, alcoholic,stagger across the countrywith a torn suitcase andbroken shoes. I had no ideawhere to keep him and methim at a motel up the street,terrified there was somethingwrong with me, that thatwas why I was still a virgin.By evening, I checked themirror, disappointed I didn’tsee a change in my face.Nothing about the motelroom stays in memory. Orwhen he started living in thetrees, sneaking in the backdoor when my husband pulledout in the Healy. That room,so pure, so like a bridal chamber,tho still pristine, the only colornot white in the room besidethe tiger cat, was his, my firstlover, and my body. Afterlove we’d read poetry all day.Was it wine coolers orscotch? He wanted drugs butwe had only nut meg. Likesilk draped over the railingin the photo of this house,my body fell over his. Howlittle I remember his smell,how I felt with him inside me.He was too big, he couldn’tstay. He lit a match under mywindow each night and I turnedthe light on and off like a firefly signaling for a mate.It was always a good story butit was getting so cold inthe woods he couldn’t stay.The only place he can has beenfor so many yearsin poems

November 11, 2009

The Hammer got thrown out of the bar againthis time the last time she swears she’s never going back.This time it was Halloween and she was dressed as asexy cop but she still got thrown out and she tellsme it wasn’t her fault because she was fightingwith the guy I really didn’t know she liked that muchand he spilled a pitcher of beer on her on purpose.She threw a glass of beer in his face. Matt the bartenderturned the music off and took her drink—JD on the rocks—out of her hand and then asked the bar, “Should Ithrow her out?” And they all screamed “Yes!”so he threw her out. (She texted me the next morningthat she wanted to throw up everything that happenedthe night before.) He threw her out like thetime the construction workers followed her intothe bathroom and the time when she fought withthe mousy girl about spilling drinks on her.He threw her out like the night she wouldn’t letme leave the bar and said the greatest things everto me “Take me to your car” the least of it.

She got thrown out of the bar again andshe swears she’s never going back butI missed her that last time even thoughI was in the bar that night waiting for herlike the night I was waiting for her on my birthdayand she never showed till too late and come to think of itshe got thrown out that night too. I missed her.She got thrown out of the bar again and she’s never going backbut I know she will, hope she willgo back to get thrown out againbecause she is the reason all the seasonsthrow out and throw uplife and death and lust and lovelike cheap drinks on the bar’sdirty old lonely widowed floor.

I guess some people just know me. At 7-Eleven when I don’t buy beer just milk or juice or Win $1,000 A Week for Life scratch-off cards the guy behind the counter always asks, “What? No beer?” like it’s a goddamn miracle. Or when I go to the bar Ritchie or Matt always pull me a pint before I even sit down. And Ross writes me: “I’m going to pass on this one but keep throwing away money on those strippers.” And Walter says something about what I wrote: “If I didn’t know you were from New York, I’d think you were from Texas.” And xTx gave me the greatest compliment a broken old writer could ever get: “You seriously need to call me. Like, on the phone.”

It’s scary but these people I don’t know know the real me like in that Who song. Maybe I should always buy beer even at 7 in the morning and thank you Ritchie and Matt for the pints and I’ll keep throwing it away on strippers Ross coz they make good stories and Walter it’s true I’m from Queens but there is a secret Wild Bunch cowboy inside robbing banks, throwing lead eating horse meat, slugging rotgut looking for xTx’s digits among the hot cactus cunnilingus.

These people I don’t know know me like she knows the real me when she calls me with the good news: “You’re going to love this! I just got back from the dentist! I have 6 cavities!” She knows I love her rotting teeth and her silver fillings and her wisdom tooth pulled out by the budget dentist the day before we walked the night streets her shoving too sweet candy into our mouths telling the bastard called Tomorrow she knows him and he should go fuck himself.

It has occurred to methat what I should have doneall those years agowhen you sent me awayafter I showed up unexpectedlyat your dormwas simply to not have come back.After dating for 2 yearsyou wanted something more than me,you didn’t want to be tied down to only me,you wanted your freedomto wander and try other boys,and who could blame you for that really.When you sent me awayso you could spend that daywith that other guyI should have taken the hint,respected your wishes and stayed away,not visited or called or written to you any more.I should have simply stayed away forever.That would have been a horrible thingfor my life but certainly the best thing for you.You would have been unencumberedby me in your pursuit to find another,better man to care for you.I’m sorry I didn’t leave you alonewhen you asked me to, so sorry for that.

November 9, 2009

give me my
first love, but
enough stories
to last longer
than he did. Ex
con, alkie, with
his cat like body.
I’d forgotten
the slope of
his arms until
a photo slid
out and I saw
the way he
held the cat made
me remember
the way he held
my body. The
first one, and the
first one I
came with him
inside me. I
thought he was an
amazing lover
then but of
course I had
nothing to
compare him
with. Now I
do and I
do

trying to pull somememory of him back.Suede, maybe corduroy,Was he nice to my cat?He must have been butI don’t remember. NoAbys then, but tigercat, the grey cat, brownone, her kittens. I’monly sure becauseof photographs, one ineach hand. A smilecamouflages what I felt,Then, out of fantasy,he wrote he saw mypicture in a magazine,said he wanted totake me downthe Mississippihollering poems andblowing weed. Hesounded crazy and Iwas bored, living, amarried virgin in araised ranch for years.That his eyes weregreen, I didn’t remember.Someone wrote totell me. Except forwhat I wrote about himso little seems real

It was just like theySaid in basic training,You squeeze the triggerAnd another headBlasts apart likeEarth exploding inA science fiction movie.The top half ofThe toasted driverIn a burnt out truckFalls when youOpen the door.The inner coreOf still raw sinewMakes the hangingUpper torsoBounce likeA bungee jumperAt the end ofHis freefall.FindingMutilated bodies ofLess than luckyComradesMakes it all so easy.CompassionIs limited toSearching the deadFor those harshForeign cigarettes'Cause you finishedYour last buttTwo days ago.

November 6, 2009

none of the clutter in my uncle’s last daysor the lemon meringue pies or white cakes.Sundays, the grown ups slapped cardsand I watched thru clear French doorsor imagined oceans, the shells, the greenChinese rug. Even then it was dissolving.Clarinets, velvet, a Chinese table withplaying cards inside, coppery. In thedream, the last person is gone, is missing.Each room has been cleaned and packed,a box of never used syringes, clothestied with strings. Where are the paintingsthat cluttered walls. Even the painted scenein the hallway is covered over. Echoes.No blinds. I must be here to look aroundfor the last time but I’m not sure why.Sterile. No one fighting over the Passovertable. The stained glass gloves, the ones Ialways wanted as a kid, gone. I was promised.I thought they’d be mine. So little to showthe life that was here. Bare brass beds strippedas so much. Labeled boxes. So much medicine,medical supplies. And who are these strangerswho enter the house silently, expressionless,without a word. They are dressed as if forchurch or a funeral and quietly collect itemsfrom every room. Three or four boxes at atime and then, a few minutes later, 3 or 4 more.I’ve never seen them. They’re taking the lastof what belonged here. I go to the room mymother had, the smallest, being a girl whenbeing a girl didn’t much count. Brokenfurniture, a desk, at least there’s papers—maybe something my mother wrote. I’ve lostso much. Have I come too late. Why didn’t Ilook for what I could grab, a memento. Thesepapers in my mother’s drawer, I cram them withan old shopping bag. It’s late, Saturday. Herroom is shambles but there’s an old I thinka flapper dress, rainbow fishnet. It’s torn butit’s gorgeous. It’s what I love, all I haveof her

by Lyn Lifshinthere’s been rumors, somepretty blatant moves. Still,it’s a dance. But then, whatisn’t and beingat this retreat in the trees,nothing is quite the way itshould be. Each move seemsnew. Rooms dug out into theearth, small caves who knowswhat animals could burrowin. With only candles, solittle light. A low down musk.There can’t be showers.No windows for stars. Laterthe dream will make me soenraged, so wildly surelittle is left to live for, but theremust have been pale rootsof flowers like upside downtrees and the warmth from somany bodies laughing andgiggling thru bark and leavesand buried opals, bone of a lastemperor, gold circling a princess’bones. Forget the crawlies, theslime. I was doing that, gettingready to make a bed in the tentlike corner, thinking of a weekof dance I’d saved all I hadfor when he, the teacher, theone that made dance more thanjust ballroom—the joy in hisarms and how for weeks his wordswere his hands, my skin stillglowed from them. Or was it abruise? If it wasn’t, it would bewhen I saw him climb the earth tobe past me, a new pale newdifferent Asian woman this time,an Asian slip of a girl, long hairflowing like sea weed and heholding her to him like she was,she would be part of himself

A bird chirps outside my trailer(if it was inside I might have something:watching it spread its wings to fly before I set it free).On my back on the bedexhausted with seemingly everymuscle and bone in my bodyscreamingbabbling in pain,from the job.And I start to worry about my sons.Over the radio 2 idiots screamat eachother, one is on the political rightthe other on the left.Both are full of deep rank shit,as isanyonewho defines themselves in suchmoronic and dull terms.I turn the dial searchingfor some classicalmusic; some rock,jazz, Brazilian toe jam dancers,anything but the insipid wailingof the insane and warring world. I come acrossGeorge Gershwin’s Promenade, andsettle back on the bed.

I hear thebird; it approves and issinging along.Another day tomorrow atthe $8.25 an hour job-which gives me just enoughmoney to pay the rent, child support;it keeps me in food, cigarettes, beerand typing paper.Gershwin endsand some Chopinis on. Rain is starting to fall,tingeing on the roof like stray buckshot.And I wonder where the bird has flown forshelter,and I wonder how long my bodycan take it,and I wonder when I will settle with my lot,and I wonder how long the globalmadness will continue,and I wonder if my sons are safe,and I wonder again where the bird has flown forshelter.Chopin ends and some music I don’trecognize comes on. Rain fallsheavy and the wind is blowing.

November 3, 2009

i haven't written anythingworth a goddam piss in the sinkprobably because latelyi've been drinkingtwo sixers a nightwith trips to the barand a foil on the sideremembering herof course on the upsidewhen i'm not blacking outin the wild pitch of memorymy skull resounds withthe riotous chatterof a workshop for fraudsheld underwateror a reading for nutswith something to scratchthru their chemicalstraitjacket culture

in a lunch barflicking through the glossy magsi thought about how inaneand meaningless life had becomeor at leasthow most of everything conspiredto make it seem that wayanother dress, another partyanother baby, another break upanother diet, another rehab stintand then rememberedanother car bomb in old baghdadwhere life is cheap and meaningfulall at oncehundreds dead, hundreds moreshred like kebab meatand how magazines like theseor lives like minesuddenly becomereprehensiblealmost meaninglesssweating out the pisseyes too dry to cry

November 2, 2009

the clear calm startles.How many years sincesleep held me like alover, faithfully, notthe kind who says showmore skin and vanishes,but velvety, lush as anight we were all youngand the darkness wasa surprise. Lightsgoing on and outside,the fireflies, diamondsand rhinestones studdedthe blackness, signalingfor a mate and wewere too, under aslash, the pale newmoon

“the violet hour” midJuly and especiallyyesterday. Blues bandplaying. Dupont Circle,heavy with roses.Cappuccino in the outside café. The violethour. The slash of pageI saw and somethingabout getting up fromthe desk and I wonder,did he go out to waitfor the moon or themusk of peonies, fernsor walk into the roomwhere a woman waited,her legs, her everythingopen to him